Category: English
Why Those Two Things?
It’s not that unusual for words to have multiple meanings but I came across the word “caqui” today and its two meanings are (1) basically the same as “khaki” in English and (2) a persimmon. I guess I’d assume if a colour is also a fruit you’d expect it to be the colour of that fruit: orange, raspberry, lime green, etc. But caquis aren’t caqui, are they?
Having said that, Khaki is a pretty confusing colour in English too. It has a different pronunciation in Britain vs the US, so when I first heard my dad use it, he was looking for paint for some toy soldiers we were painting and he said he needed “car-key colour” so I wondered why he wanted to paint them silver. Years later, when I was living in Maryland, working with adults with learning disabilities, a psychologist said he was wearing “cacky pants” and I guessed what he meant but it didn’t stop me chuckling childishly.
Canção de Engate
I haven’t done a song translation for while and I fancied having a go at “Cancao de Engate” by António Variações. There aren’t many decent videos of it and anyway he’s a bit hard to follow because of his distinctive singing style so if you don’t know it, try this orchestral acoustic version by Tiago Bettencourt
My sense, going into it, is that it uses a lot of slightly oblique language so this is going to be a tricky one, but here goes…
| Tu estás livre e eu estou livre E há uma noite p’ra passar Porque não vamos unidos Porque não vamos ficar Na aventura dos sentidos | You’re free and I’m free* And there’s a night to get through Why don’t we get together Why don’t we get Into the adventure of the senses |
| Tu estás só e eu mais só estou E tu tens o meu olhar Tens a minha mão aberta À espera de se fechar Nessa tua mão deserta | You’re alone and I’m alone too And you have caught my eye You have my open hand Ready to close On your lonely hand |
| Vem que o amor não é o tempo Nem é o tempo que o faz Vem que o amor é o momento Em que eu me dou Em que te dás | Come, because love is not time Nor is it time that makes it Come, because time is the moment In which I give myself And you give yourself |
| Tu que buscas companhia E eu que busco quem quiser Ser o fim desta energia Ser um corpo de prazer Ser o fim de mais um dia | You who are looking for company And me who is looking for whoever wants To be the end of this energy To be a body for pleasure To be the end of another day |
| Tu continuas à espera Do melhor que já não vem Que a esperança foi encontrada Antes de ti por alguém E eu sou melhor que nada | You keep waiting For something better that isn’t coming Because what you hope for has already been found By someone before you And I am better than nothing |
| Vem que o amor não é o tempo Nem é o tempo que o faz Vem que o amor é o momento Em que eu me dou Em que te dás x3 | Come, because love is not time Nor is it time that makes it Come, because time is the moment In which I give myself And you give yourself x3 |
* I’m sorry, but I am a man of a certain age but I am already reading this in a Mr Humphries voice
Hey, well that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. One of the easier ones I’ve done, in fact!
The Saud And The Fury
I had to use the verb “Saudar” in a sentence the other day. I don’t use it often and I was surprised to find that in the present tense most of the conjugations put an accent over the U:
This looked a bit weird to this foreigner. The first syllable or Saudar is pronounced to more-or-less rhyme with “loud” but saúdo is more like sa-OOD-oh, so it isn’t just cosmetic, it changes the sound of the root of the verb.
Not only is this not how conjugations usually work, it made me wonder whether there was any link to the word “saúde” (health). I asked in the portuguese fórum, but now I think of it, I probably should have just opened wiktionary. Basically, yes, they are distant cousins.
Saúde is from the Latin word for health or safety: salus.
Saudar is from salutare, meaning to protect, or to save. Well, it’s a verb form, but salutare and salus are certainly linked.
So in other words, although they have different meanings, they come from the same basic Latin root, with the L disappearing and the T gradually getting worn away to a D. Disappearance of soft sounds like Ls and Ds, and conversions of hard sounds like T and P to softer equivalents like D and B are both fairly common paths for Latin words becoming portuguese. So Potere in Latin became poder in portuguese, Sapere became saber, Salire became sair, videre became ver and so on.
Incidentally, saudade sounds like it’s in the same sort of area. Is that another long-lost cousin of Saudar and saúde? No, it used to be spelled Soudade, but it’s spelling changed over the yeas. It actually comes from the Latin Solitatem, meaning it’s related to Solitude in English and Soledad in Spanish.
Edmadeira Madeiramadeira*
Acabamos de ver um filme dos anos setenta, chamado The Wicker Man. (O Homem de… Hum… Espera lá… De Vime**)
Já vi há anos, mas gostei ainda mais na segunda visualização. A minha filha vira dois filmes que copiaram o enredo, mas o original é o melhor e o maior.
*OK, the title probably needs some explanation. Madeira is portuguese for wood. The star of the film is called Edward Woodward, and there’s an old joke that goes: What do you call a man with three planks of wood on his head? Redwood Woodwood)
**Nope. It’s called O Sacrifício in portuguese and O Homem de Palha in Brazil.
Very proud of this…
Got it in 3!
This is a good example of the way Portuguese words are easier to guess than English ones because it’s a much more “lawful” language that isn’t quite so promiscuous at absorbing foreign words and isn’t as cavalier about spellings.
OK, so given that any portuguese word is going to have at least two vowels in it, and the game doesn’t seem to allow slang, plurals or (m)any verb conjugations, let’s crack on:
In the first row, we find out there’s no A or O
In the second row, I’m using Es and Is and one of the letters is in the right position. It has to be one of the vowels, because if not then there’s no E, I, A or O in it, which means our two vowels must both be Us and I don’t see that as likely… Maybe there’s a portuguese word that would fit, but I can’t think of one.
OK, so it’s either
- _E___ with a U at position 4 (where else could it go?) seems unlikely.
- __I__ with a U… Er… Somewhere… And I think that’s unlikely too
- ____E with a U in positions 2 or 3. Surely the only likely option.
Since I’ve already used a lot of consonants, there aren’t many options left. Has to be duche, right? Right.
You have to laugh or you’d cry…
I Can’t Quite Believe I Am This Much of a Genius
OK, not the most modest post title I’ve ever written, but seriously, every time I’ve tried Quina, I’ve managed to get the answer even though it’s insanely difficult. Each time, I get half way though and think “there’s just no way I can do this”. I make silly mistakes, don’t feel like I’ve any solid ground to stand on, and yet, by the end, I pull a rabbit out of the hat.
Ceifa means harvest, by the way. Specifically, it seems to mean harvest using a scythe (gadanha) or sickle (foice), so maybe it means more like “reaping”. And it has a related verb, ceifar, in case you’re wondering.
Tudólogo
This guy asked if José Milhazes (he’s the guy in this video and the author of this book) was just a “Todólogo”. I couldn’t find it anywhere but as it turns out, that’s because he’d misspelled it. It should be tudólogo with a U. The suffix “-ólogo” is the equivalent of “-ologist”. And a tudo-ólogo is an everythingolohist. A know-it-all in other words. Someone who acts like an expert on everything but doesn’t really know anything.
Piadas Secas
I tried to make a joke in a discussion about a previous post and it didn’t work so here’s a very laboured discussion of when and whether “In Soviet Russia” jokes can work in portuguese. It was always going to be a challenging text and, sure enough, I made lots of errors. For me, the tricky part if how to emphasise the reversal at the end. I want it to land hard on the “you” at the end. I’m sure I’ve seen this done in portuguese by doubling up in the pronoun – like “Parece-me a mim…” but I don’t think I really stuck the landing on any of these attempts.
Este texto é uma tentativa de recriar uma piada antiga. Tentei copiar o formato duma resposta a um comentário da Dani, mas acho que não funciona.
Em inglês, o modelo é assim (imaginem que o falante é um russo num programa americano). “Here in America, is very good, everyone watch television. In old country, television watch you!”(1)
Muitos destas piadas não funcionam se forem traduzidas literalmente: “Nos Estados Unidos podes sempre encontrar uma festa. Na Rússia, o partido encontra-te sempre a ti” é engraçado em inglês porque “festa” e “partido” traduzem-se ambos* como “party”, mas em português, nem por isso.
O mais difícil, acho eu, é como enfatizar a inversão dos pronomes. Acho que preciso de usar a forma Verbo hífen pronome indireto [a] pronome subjetivo. Vamos experimentar alguns…
“Nos Estados Unidos, toda a gente vê televisão. Na Rússia** Soviética a televisão vê-te a ti”
Ou talvez “…vê-nos a nós”
No Reino Unido, comem-se nabos. Na Rússia, os nabos comem-te comem-vos a você
Ou talvez “…tu comes nabos…” ***
Hum… A forma “você” parece demasiado formal para uma piada…?
Em Portugal não se tem bico-de-obra, bico-de-obra tem-te a ti****.
Em português, conjugam-se os verbos. Na Rússia soviética, os verbos conjugam-te a ti.
O que acham? O Bruno Nogueira anda preocupado que eu roubo-lhe o emprego?
(1) A conjugação do verbo em inglês está errada, mas vou ignorar. Se as minhas flexões todas estão erradas, não é deliberado, é um lapso.
* Ambos (“both”) goes after the verb, unlike in English.
**The corrector suggested changing this to ‘na União Sovietica’ which is technically right, but I think the joke format tends to be “In Soviet Russia”, not “In the Soviet Union”
*** Although você is formal, it can be used in jokes if the formality is relevant to the situation. It would have been better in the tu form though.
**** This was the original joke I tried to make, leading to my deciding to write this post. When I first tried it, in the reddit comments under a previous text, it looked like this:
Luso 